Meta has announced a second round of layoff with 10,000 employees affected and 5,000 vacancies withdrawn as the Big Tech industry awaits deep economic downturn.
Co-founder and CEO of Meta Mark Zuckerberg also revealed that the company will cancel lower priority projects, as the indirect costs of these initiatives were not recognised.
Meta is slashing jobs in a bid to recover from losses and invest in the ‘metaverse’.
In November, Meta slashed its workforce by 11,000 in the first mass layoffs in its 18-year history. Its headcount stood at 86,482 at the end of 2022, up 20 percent from a year ago.
Zuckerberg said, “With less hiring, I’ve made the difficult decision to further reduce the size of our recruiting team. We will let recruiting team members know tomorrow whether they’re impacted. We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, thereafter our business groups in late May.
In a small number of cases, it may take through the end of the year to complete these changes. Our timelines for international teams will also look different, and local leaders will follow up with more details. Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet hired.
Zuckerberg in a message to staff said, “It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate colleagues who have been part of our success.”
Following its initial move, Meta believes that the layoffs have had a good impact on the company’s operations:”
“Since we reduced our workforce last year, one surprising result is that many things have gone faster. In retrospect, I underestimated the indirect costs of lower priority projects.”
While speaking on possible steps to take, Zuckerberg said: “In terms of how we should operate during this period, I encourage each of you to focus on what you can control. That is, do great work and support your teammates. Our community is extremely resilient. Change is never easy, but I know we’ll get through this and come out with an even stronger company that can build better products faster and enable you to do the best work of your careers.”
According to layoff-tracking sites, the tech industry has laid off nearly 290,000 workers since the start of 2022, with about 40 percent of them coming this year.
